


Friends in Ink and Paper

by commas_and_ampersands



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Sailor Moon S, pretentious literature references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 16:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commas_and_ampersands/pseuds/commas_and_ampersands
Summary: Hotaru's childhood friends are not made of flesh and bone, but of ink and paper.





	Friends in Ink and Paper

**Author's Note:**

> Written August 2010; tweaked October 2017

For many years, Hotaru supposes she was a normal girl. She remembers riding on her father's shoulders in the park and squirming under her mother's hands while her hair was brushed. She colored in her father's books - she did not know then that books did not need pictures - and he scolded, though he never yelled. She danced and sang in her mother's sewing room, her mother humming accompaniment.  
  
Hotaru also remembers having friends. They are nameless, nearly faceless to her now, but she remembers them. A girl with pigtails and scabby knees who was brave in the face of everything except for spiders. A boy with crooked glasses and sticky fingers who had the best ideas for make believe. Twins Hotaru could only sometimes tell apart. These and other transient playground companions came in and out of her life. She was happy.  
  
Then Mama died and everything changed.  
  
Her father didn't laugh like he used to. In fact, he never laughed in front of her again, though sometimes she heard the sounds echoing up from the cellar. They frightened her. Sometimes her father frightened her too.  
  
As if to fill the void her mother left behind, her father filled the house with women. First, there is Kaorinite, the lab assistant Hotaru saw sneaking out of her father's bedroom more than once, and then five others. She hears one of them say they are witches. Hotaru is afraid of them.  
  
Since the accident, she can't go outside and play like she used to. They say she's 'delicate' and 'fragile.' Hotaru remembers when she broke a piece of her mother's china and worries that she'll shatter into tiny pieces if she falls. As she gets older, she begins to understand what these words really mean. She can't run without becoming short of breath. Sometimes she faints for no reason. Even the sunlight hurts her exposed skin.  
  
Her house is full of people, but she's never felt more alone.  
  
One day, one of the witches comes into her room. Her eyes are like icicles. Hotaru feels colder just standing next to her. The witch is carrying a box.  
  
"People are always giving me books," she explains matter-of-factly. "They assume because I'm a genius that I like to reach fiction." She giggles. It sounds cruel, but Hotaru has already realized this is the ice girl's version of kindness. "I thought you might like them." She leaves the box at the door.  
  
It takes Hotaru almost an hour to get the courage to open the box.  
  
 _Pride and Prejudice. Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window. Lord of the Rings. The Tale of Genji._  All brand new, often with the price tag still on them.  
  
She devours them.  
  
Her books become her companions, their white pages glowing amber underneath the color of her ever-growing collection of lamps. She reads every one of them. It takes her only one month. Sometimes, she doesn't understand what the words mean. Sometimes she finds herself laughing or crying and has to remind herself why. Sometimes she understands the text so completely that she has to stop or she can't stop.  
  
When she finishes, the ice witch seems to know psychically, and leaves another box at her door.  
  
She reads and she becomes them. She's the one on the hero's journey. She's the girl from another world who can read impossible symbols. She's the one falling in love. She's  _living_.  
  
This process continues for years. She reads all of Shakespeare, favors the histories and dark lady sonnets. She reads of nine-tailed foxes and river dragons, possessed mirrors and heavenly swords, dead gods and lost princesses. She reads of the  _suki-onna_ , snow girls and thinks of Viluy. She reads so much she fears she may go blind.  
  
One day, Viluy (it does not seem right to call her the ice witch anymore) delivers another box right on time. It is filled to the brim with Bronte.  _Jane Eyre_  is on top.  
  
She reads of a girl alone in a home full of people. She reads of people too sick to go outside. She reads of children who miss their father.  
  
But by the end of the book, she discovers she was not and never could be Jane.  
  
She's the mad woman in the attic.  
  
The next day she sneaks out and goes to the park.  
  
She makes a friend of flesh and bone.  
  
The Brontes go unread.


End file.
